of speaking of intellectual existences alone, in language constructed in reference merely to the present constitution of things, which is a mixed constitution of matter and mind. We will imagine, then, that God had created only minds. Would they not have existed somewhere,--in some portion of space, and at some point of time? For the author considers body as essential to the bringing of mind into relationship with time also. In other words, would those created minds have the ubiquity and eternity of their Creator? If not, and as they would be separate existences, they must preserve some relation to distance and duration. We speak not of created minds, especially in respect to their eternity, in the sense in which the Pythagoreans and Plato held the doctrine, that they have existed from eternity a parte post, as that they will exist in eternity, a parte ante, for this would not come up to the meaning of our interrogatory. The Platonic doctrine is no more than the sober truth, as to the eternity a parte post. But we speak of it in the sense of the scriptures when they asscribe eternity to God, that is to say, as inhabiting eternity. Now this cannot be supposed in regard to finite minds, nor can their actual ubiquity be supposed. On the contrary, in reference to such minds in comparison with their Creator, and in view of the necessary relations of space and duration, which are boundless, we cannot conceive of them otherwise than as occupying a portion of space and duration,--an infinitesimal portion. Or we will imagine, that all minds now existing were at once removed, by the power of God, beyond the limits of the material universe, as we hold it and the author holds it, to have limits, and not to be extended through infinite space. Then would those minds be no where, or have no relations to extension and space? Would they not, by the terms, have an obvious relation of distance to the existing material universe? They would be beyond it, not within it. Or we will imagine again, that the bodies which are now inhabited by minds were dissolved or annihilated, would not the latter among themselves, and in their various worlds, have the same relations of distance in respect to each other, that they now have?

The notion, that sheer mind cannot possess locality, if rigidly scrutinized, would exclude its alliance with corporeity, or with the matter constituting body. It would be applicable to this mode of extension, as well as to others. For in itself, how can mind be allied to one portion of matter more than to another? How can it be confined to a body or dwell in a body, if it cannot in itself have a place? Body itself has extension, and gives to the mind which is united to it locality. If the author should say, as he does say, body is a third essence, a something constituted of matter and mind, then it is that which is brought into relationship with space

and extension. The affirmation should be made of that, and not of mere mind. It is apparent, that the author assumes the thing which is to be proved. He first supposes the co-existence of matter and mind in a body, and then asserts that this amalgam is the necessary means of giving locality to mind. For ought we can tell, God could unite mind to any portion of matter if he pleased. This we are at liberty to suppose, unless body is that essence, without which mind cannot act, or, in other words, cannot be. The latter idea seems to be, after all, the proper inference from the author's assertion, that sheer mind is no where. On this supposition, does it exist at all? Can there be, in the nature of the case, pure finite spirits in the universe? Or indeed can there be an Infinite Spirit, for what relation can an Infinite Spirit have to space and extension, if a finite spirit, as such, can have none? The author, we know, makes a distinction here as he remarks, that God is every where, in a sense altogether incomprehensible to finite minds, inasmuch as his relation to space and extension is peculiar to infinitude. The popular sense in which he is said to be so, the author deems improper. This is a summary disposition of the subject, but the objector may be allowed to say, that in reasoning on the nature of mind, we are not confined to any particular order of minds. We take into view mind as such, and the prerogatives that are common to all minds,-the finite, and the infinite. We argue from the one to the other, in every thing in which we find a resemblance, and on this ground infer, that if the Infinite may be said to be here, or there, or every where, a finite spirit may be affirmed to be some where. More might be shown to be uncertain in the author's account of the essential conditions of corporeity; but the general difficulty suggested by this part of his scheme, has been sufficiently exhibited.

In the chapter on the correspondence between the present and future employment of the active principles of human nature, we meet with a speculation in respect to which we can obtain very little assurance, from any means of knowledge now open to man. He speaks of the insuperable difficulties, that will present themselves in certain critical conjunctures of the universe hereafter, and observes, that "as great epochs give place one to another, an abyss will open, into which not the most exalted minds can dare to look with a steadfast gaze, and from the brink of which such will retire trembling." He speaks of the mysteries of heaven opening upon us the very same moment in which "we clear the mists of mortality," and that these will "involve difficulties of a firmer texture, and such as shall try to the utmost the silent fortitude of the soul." It is hardly necessary to have made these and other similiar remarks, so unhesitatingly. It would be difficult to establish their correctness on the basis of scripture; and it

is even possible, that scripture might be arrayed decidedly against them, as in the declaration, "then shall I know even as also I am known," and in its almost, if not entirely, uniform description of the calm and serene pleasures of heaven," therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The author, we are apprised, repudiates the common notion, or much that is involved in the common notion, of the rest and tranquillity of heaven,--as being a cessation of cares, conflicts, and dangers,--as consisting "through an eternity," to use his own phraseology, of "recollections of labor, anthems of praise, and inert repose:" and accordingly, he speaks of a state of things there, in which there may be services to perform, enterprises to be undertaken, and a promotion to be aimed at, “such as none but the bold and the strong shall be equal to, and none but the aspiring dare to attempt." Such things may possibly be; but this similarity of the earthly and heavenly state, appears to be more strongly expressed than is warranted by the language of the bible.

The general structure of this writer's theory led him into some singular notions, as has been seen, respecting the intermediate state. That they cannot be supported by scripture might, if necessary, be easily proved, at length. But it is only requisite to advert in thought, to the joys and hopes with which the consideration of departing and being with Christ animated his early followers, to the expressions of scripture which teach the immediate happy destiny of all holy men upon their entrance into the invisible world,-and to the nature and design of a retribution, in order to be convinced that the assertions of the writer, on this subject, cannot be true. He has, on the whole, made the state of the pious dead less joyous than gloomy. At least, such a time as "the chrysalis period of the soul, marked by the destitution of all the instruments of active life, corporeal and mental," cannot be that era of glory, which Paul thought of, when he said, "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." The author's distinctive view of body, as already noticed, doubtless led him, for consistency's sake, into this vagary, since he has made the energy of mind to depend very much, if not altogether, on this its alliance with matter. Knowing that departed spirits had left their bodies, and learning from the new testament, that "corporeal incorruptibility" is to be looked for at a distant day, he must have viewed them, on his own scheme,

and the virtuous too, as in no very desirable state. To alleviate it, however, he allows them a corporeity, though "more attenuated" than shall befit their ultimate condition. Thus, without seeming to have the incongruity of the thing at all in his mind, he makes a body which had participated neither in the sins nor virtues of a probationary life, (which will be far from the case of the body raised up at the last day,) to suffer a punishment or enjoy a gratification, which by no means belongs to it. In this respect, he revives the notion,—we believe, of some one of the schoolmen, or possibly of Le Grand himself, for we read it in his Body of Philosophy, which, in construing the scriptures literally, ascribes the union of temporary bodies with the souls of the wicked, in order that they may be capable of undergoing the fiery punishment of the pit. May we not rather suppose, that spirits can exist as well without bodies as with them, and suffer or enjoy, in that condition, all that divine justice or mercy shall adjudge to be right? The moral purposes, also, which Mr. T. assumes to be answered, through the intermediate state as he views it, and which, if we mistake not, have been supposed by others who believe, that the dead exist merely as spirits, do not strike our minds with much force. That either they have attenuated bodies, or are without bodies, and are called into that condition, in order that "those emotions of the moral nature that have been overborne or held in abeyance, by the urgent impulses of the animal life, shall take their free course, and reach their height as fixed habits of the mind," can be supposed to be no more necessary for them, than for such as shall be alive at the coming of Christ, who, of course can never realize purposes of that kind. It is, as we should consider it, an order of nature, inasmuch as some of mankind must live and die before others, and not any thing which the earlier probationers of earth need, more than others. In our apprehension, the dead depart immediately into a world of happiness or of misery, and are subserving no other moral purposes, than are connected with a just retribution.

In alliance with this topic, he has touched upon some very doubtful matters, though with his wonted ingenuity, concerning the occasional interferences of the dead with the living. The manner in which he accounts for these occurrences, or explains the physical principle of them, is as curious a product of fancy, as we ever recollect to have met with; though it accords admirably with his general theory, concerning the state of the dead.

A condition of suspended powers, and of destitution, such as we now attribute to the human soul, through its intermediate period, may very naturally be imagined to involve a vague, or perhaps a strong and definite, tendency, or appetency toward the open world of power and action-there may be a yearning after the lost corporeity, or after the VOL. VIII. 83

expected corporeity:-there may be a pressing on toward the frequented walks of active existence. Now let it be just imagined that, as almost all natural principles and modes of life are open to some degree of irregularity, and admit exceptive cases, so this pressure of the vast community of the dead, toward the precincts of life, may, in certain cases, actually break the boundaries that hem in the ethereal crowds, and that thus, as if by accident and trespass, the dead may in single instances infringe upon the ground of common corporeal life.' p. 224.

We do not object to such a philosophical consideration as he has given to this subject, in the whole of what he has said; on the contrary we are rather pleased with it; but in regard to the foregoing extract, it is obvious to remark, that as apparitions become less frequent, as science and knowledge extend their dominion among mankind, it must follow, that "appetency towards the open world of power and action" is diminishing among the departed, or that it is indulged more in vain than was wont to be the case. Perhaps the conviction is more sensibly felt, that mankind will not "be persuaded though one rose from the dead." For our own part, we should resolve the fact of any interferences of the dead with the living, if ever such interferences take place, into some special divine commission or sufferance, rather than into any general state of restlessness among the dead.

*

Mr. T., in that part of his theory in which he advances the idea, that the sun of each system may be the abode of immortal beings, adopts a mode of reasoning which implies, that the inhabitants of planets must necessarily be subject to decay and death. In truth, this opinion is directly intimated. "The surfaces of the planets, and all the vegetable and animal species thereon subsisting, are liable to an alternation of heat and cold, of light and darkness, and therefore live through returning periods of excitement and repose, and this, both diurnal and annual. * * Stimulus and excitement are conditions of existence, implying inertia and decomposition. * * * * The life therefore of all planetary species, that is to say, of all species exposed to alternations of light and darkness, and which in conformity with this alternation live by turns, walking and sleeping, is a life tending to dissolution." If this be the case, does it not conclude against the immortality of our first parents, had they never fallen by transgression? Must they not have died sooner or later, as having been inhabitants of a planet? If this consequence were thought of, in the construction of the hypothesis, it should have been obviated in some way, if it could be.

We have now noticed some things, which are too uncertain or evidently incorrect in the author's Theory, to admit its claims to an entire reception; but they bear a small proportion to the parts of the book which are unexceptionable,--it may be said, in the